I’ve said before the unofficial motto of the Democratic Party the past few decades could be summed up in Benito Mussolini’s famous definition of totalitarianism, “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”. Tonight, the video that opened the Democratic National Convention proved that once and for all.

No interpretation of that statement is true. We are not the government. The Constitution does not begin with the words “We, the Government of the United States”. Abraham Lincoln did not speak of “a government of the people, by the people, to which all the people belong”. Washington, DC does not own us nor does it have any claim over any part of our lives but the ones we grant it. Government exists because we free people, who hold rights the government did not grant and thus has no rightful power to take away, allow it to exist. We may change it at any time we want. We may tear it down with our own hands if it pleases us to do so because government — the structure by which we decide how to order our free society — belongs to us. Each of us, individually, owns it by dint of our citizenship and our Creator-granted rights.

I know the Democrats do not want this to be so. You often see left-wing pundits squawking about how a tax cut “costs” the government, as if our government is a feudal lord who graciously allows us to keep a few crumbs of hard-earned bread. That’s not only wrong; it is flatly un-American.

6 Cabinet Secretaries (including the head of the Small Business Administration)

3 Candidates

5 Professional Activists

Of the remaining five, two are celebrities (and one of those, Eva Longoria, is a Obama campaign co-chair). That is the lineup of career bureaucrats and professional leeches who want you to believe that you belong to them, that your life ought to be subject to their whims, that your judgement is inferior to theirs. You can buy what they’re selling, sure. Just know that you’ll pay plenty and get back only what’s left after they take care of their rich union boss buddies and campaign contributors.

Or, you know, you could take your country and your life out of their hands and control it the way God and the Founders intended. It’s entirely up to you.